Judgement Day for Flacco and Ryan

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RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; APRIL 26th, 2008.

“With the third pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the Atlanta Falcons select Matt Ryan, from Boston College.”
“With the eighteenth pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, the Baltimore Ravens select Joe Flacco, from The University of Deleware.”

And so began an era. After two failures at the QB position, two fired coaches, it was time.

All of the sudden, the Ravens & Falcons were in the playoffs, one year later. The Ravens were one win away from the Super Bowl, and the Falcons were defeated in the wild card round – a disappointing end, but a promising future. The next year, the Falcons missed the playoffs, but ended with a winning record. The Ravens made the playoffs, and lost in the Divisional Round. In 2010, they both made the playoffs, but they failed to move past the divisional round, another sad end to a promising season. The Ravens came within a missed field goal last year, but the Falcons couldn’t get past the wild-card round.

So now it’s time.

After all of those losses, people have said – “They don’t have playoff experience”, or that they are “Still young – maybe next year”. Well, this is next year.

Ryan finally jumped the Hurdle of getting a playoff win, and the Ravens made a huge upset over the Broncos, but that doesn’t matter anymore. In all honesty, these two games are the second-most important of the season. Here’s the thing though – in some of these wins for Flacco, he was dismal. Other times, he was great. Ryan hasn’t been so good in his playoff games either, except for that last one.

But they need to finally prove they can lead their team to a Super Bowl. The promising season is this season. In all honesty, if they can’t do it this year, I don’t think they can do it at all.

They have their playoff experience, they are at their prime. This game could define an entire career –